To estimate the amount of standard American wallpaper you'll need, first add up
the lengths of all walls to get the distance around the room and enter this figure
as the perimeter of the room. Round off to the nearest foot. Next, enter the number
of single doors (about 20 square feet), the number of double doors (about 40 square
feet), small windows (10 square feet) and large windows (25 square feet). Also enter
the square footage of any other openings or areas not to be wallpapered -- such
as a fireplace.

Next enter the size of the roll of the paper you're using in square feet, and click
on "calculate." The calculator will tell you how many rolls of that size are needed.
A standard American roll of wallpaper gives you about 35 square feet, but waste
and pattern matching usually takes this down to about 27 usable square feet per
roll.

Two wallpapering tips:

Always buy paper that carries the same lot, run or batch number. And buy more of
it than you need. In addition to a pattern number, wallpaper usually is labeled
with the lot, batch or run number, which indicates all the colors in that batch
will be consistent. The same color in a different run or lot may be noticeably different.
Buy more than you need so you'll have matching colors if you need to repaper or
make repairs in the future.

Some waste is created when the paper must be dropped down to match the pattern on
the panel just installed. To minimize this problem use two rolls at a time and alternate.

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